Why did Feng Zhi write the Biography of Du Fu?

In 1987, in response to a question from the editorial board of Huaxia Poetry Daily, Feng Zhi said that the poets and poems that had the greatest influence on me were: Du Fu, Goethe, and Rilke.

From the spiritual resonance and attraction caused by repeated reading of the "Du Gongbu Anthology" compiled by the Japanese on the way south in 1937, to the purchase of Qiu Zhu Du poems in Kunming in June 1942, the idea of wanting to write a biography after careful reading, and then to the beginning of writing in 1947, it can be said that Feng Zhi has made a long stage of preparation and accumulation in experience, spirit, thought, and education.

Regarding the writing process of "Du Fu's Biography", Feng Zhi recounted it like this:

When the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937 and Tongji University moved inland, I followed the school to Jinhua, Ganxian and Kunming, and prepared for extreme hardships along the way. From Nanchang to Ganxian by boat, walked for seven or eight days, when I was carrying a Japanese version of the "Du Gongbu Anthology", reading all the way, the more I read the more flavorful, I was in exile, and I felt very kind to Du's poems such as "Dong Hu is not yet there, and the minister is indignant". Later, he came to Kunming and taught German at Southwest Union University, paying attention to Chinese literature in his spare time. One day, in the bookstore, I accidentally annulled Du Shi and read them carefully from beginning to end, and since then I have formed some of my own views on Du Fu. At that time, I thought that even second- and third-rate writers in Europe had been given biographies to them, but in China, even the great literary heroes did not have a more detailed biography, which was a pity.

Xiao Tong's "Biography of Tao Yuanming", Yuan Shu's "Du Zimei Epitaph", and the old and new "Book of Tang" records of Li, Du, etc., are all too brief, so he decided to give Du Fu a biography. Due to the limitations of the conditions, it was impossible to do this with full energy, so my preparations took four or five years. I started by making Dushi cards, arranged by content, such as political opinions, friend interactions, birds, animals, insects, and fish. At the same time, the necessary understanding of the development and evolution of the Tang Dynasty's political economy, the canon system, and ideology and culture was also made, and the relevant works of domestic scholars such as Chen Yinke and others were also read. In addition, he also had a basic grasp of the life, thought, and creation of Du Fu's contemporaries Li Bai and Wang Wei. On this basis, I began to write the biography of Du Fu, which was already in 1947.

In July 1946, Feng Zhi returned to Beiping to teach in the Spanish Department of Peking University, and after a period of preparation, began the formal writing of the Biography of Du Fu.

From January to June 1951, Feng Zhi, under the general name of "The Biography of the Patriotic Poet Du Fu", serialized 12 issues in "New Observation", with the following titles: I. Childhood; 2. The wandering of Wu Yue and Qi Zhao; 3. Rendezvous with Li Bai; 4. The Ten Years of Chang'an; v. Exile in the midst of war; 6. Serve the Emperor and Go to the People; 7. The border police and the difficult mountains and rivers of Longyou; 8. Chengdu Caotang; (ix) Re-exile; 10. Life in the Shogunate; 11. The Lonely City of Fufu; XII. The tragic ending.

What really happened to Du Fu to Feng Zhi, and what new meaning Feng Zhi's "Biography of Du Fu" gives to Du Fu, we should grasp the value and significance of "Du Fu's Biography" from a broader background, including many aspects of personal times.

First, it is a work of overall equilibrium.

When Feng Zhi wrote the "Biography of Du Fu", there was no record of Du Fu by his contemporaries, no diaries and letters to refer to, although a large number of historical materials were consulted, but these historical materials were difficult to convince in accuracy, for example, the original biography of Du Fu in the old and new "Book of Tang" was less than two thousand words, and Feng Zhi found that there were more than a dozen errors. This brought many difficulties to Feng Zhi, and the poet could only "stop thinking" in this regard, but turned his attention to Du Fu's works themselves.

Regarding the study of poetry, ancient China paid more attention to the three aspects of evidence, annotation, and appreciation, and lacked the tradition of comprehensive research of linking poets with works, in this case, Feng Zhi insisted on starting from poetry, in order to explain Du, systematically summarizing and synthesizing, hoping to open up a new path for poet biographical writing:

How did this poet's personality develop, what traditions did he inherit, what kind of learning he had, what experiences did he have in his life that led him, and not another person, to write such a work? These, often hidden behind the work, form a secret, sometimes revealing a glimmer of light, sometimes making it difficult to find clues. This secret is like the secret of nature, and how far the natural scientists try to elucidate nature, how the literary researcher should try to open this curtain.

To study a poet's work as a whole organism, to give a detailed account of the poet's life, on the one hand to help one understand the work at a deeper level, and on the other hand—if the mind and pen of the researcher are equally delicate and powerful—to make one present an image of a poet even if one does not read it.

In fact, the "Biography of Du Fu" is based on Du Fu's poems and studies Du Fu's works as a whole. Feng Zhi insists on organically unifying the background of the times with the emergence of poets, real life and personal life, poets' political enthusiasm and artistic pursuits, objective narratives and subjective analysis, which can be said to completely present the life scenes and style portraits of an excellent patriotic poet in ancient times.

Feng Zhi believes that Du Fu's poems from his early years to his later years and his positive spirit of worrying about the country and the people are consistent from beginning to end, from the natural scenery poems of "Wangyue" to "Dengyue YangLou", from the historical reality of "Soldier Carriage Line" to "Years of Yan Xing", from "To Jun Yao Shunshang" to "Sunset Heart is Still Strong", in Feng Zhi's eyes, although the mood, realm, and melody are different, his positive spirit of worrying about the country and the people is consistent, and his feelings are consistent.

Second, "people's nature" and personal commitment and persistence.

Feng Zhi's "Biography of Du Fu" is a special work written in a special era -- the background of the era in which the country and the nation are at a major turning point, what kind of thinking, commitment and persistence should individuals have? Therefore, the study of the significance and value of Du Fu's biography should not only be placed in the context of academic evaluation.

In Feng Zhi's eyes, "Du Fu is a poet with a strong political nature", it can be said that Du Fu's poems embody the close combination of poetry and the reality of social politics and freedom, and reflect the evolution trajectory of Du Fu as a poet from a personal lyrical narrative to a "people's mouthpiece":

How he (Du Fu) went from showing off his family to loving the motherland, from expressing personal feelings to reflecting the lives of the people; How he transcended the limitations of his class to experience the calamity of the ruled and exploited people, and thus brought about the tremendous development of tang poetry, he went through many arduous processes and contradictions. This biography is about experimenting with the processes and contradictions he experienced in his life.

It can be said that Feng Zhi did it. From the enthusiasm of the state for the people embodied in the early "Grand Tour" and "Wangyue", to the thinking of contacting society after the failure of Chang'an's 10-year quest for Shi, to the "Five Hundred Words from Beijing to Fengxian County", the poet's spirit of loving the motherland and loving the people became more and more intense, and Feng Zhi injected his thinking and understanding of the times into his understanding and elaboration of Du Fu's understanding and elaboration for more than 10 years, making the biography vivid and personal.

When it comes to the "three officials" and "three distinctions", it more profoundly expresses the poet's deep affection for the people and the motherland, the contradiction between loving the people and loving the motherland, and the individual's commitment and persistence in the suffering of the country and the group. "New Security Officials" and "New Marriage" can see the dilemma of the poet, although joining the war is forced, but participating in the war is also a personal responsibility:

Send off without weeping blood,

Servants are like fathers and brothers.

Don't think about the new marriage,

Work hard.

It embodies Du Fu's spirit of getting rid of the burden and persistence of individualism, as well as experiencing suffering and bearing suffering. This is a rational self-realization:

He insisted on his character, insisted on his path, and when he was deeply aware of "what is my way" and "everywhere is a poor way", he preferred to be self-willing, preferred to see himself as zero, as ,—— but from this zero, this nothingness, in 20 years to create amazing greatness. Here, Feng Zhi truly realized the real leap of a poet from an individual to a "people's poet".

In fact, this is also the ideological resource that Feng Zhi needs to dig out from Du Shi. In Feng Zhi's view, Du Fu's poems not only belong to his time, but also belong to the era in which he lived; Du Fu was not only the mouthpiece of the people of the Tang Dynasty, but also the mouthpiece of the modern people.

Third, a new stage of spiritual exploration.

Contacting and interpreting Du Fu can be seen as a symbol of Feng Zhi's spiritual adulthood. The idea that Du Fu is the "mouthpiece of the people" and the spirit of Du Fu that "there is no freedom, only persistence" is exactly the portrait that Feng Zhi gave du Fu as a great poet. It is a process of gradual contact and perception.

After experiencing extraordinary years of experience, experiencing the observation and thinking of war and the country, and experiencing the transformation from Tang and Song poetry and German romanticism to Rilke to Goethe and Du Fu, Feng Zhi achieved a new transcendence in thought. Feng Zhi's spirit of forbearance and struggle, loss and firmness, and self-denial in this process shows the power of thought and represents the attitude of introspective intellectuals in the face of the country and the times. It can be said that this is a new self-denial, especially the concept of Du Fu's people's mouthpiece, as a new factor in Feng Zhi's personality, psychology, and concepts, which affected his life and creation in the second half of his life.

It can be said that the process of contacting Du Shi and interpreting Du Shi is the process of Feng Zhi constantly integrating himself into the group, into society, and into the times, reflecting the process of integrating into the people's torrent with his own heart and strength, and embodying feng Zhi's transformation from youth to adulthood.

(Author Wang Shaojun This article is derived from the People's Publishing House's "Thoughts and Poems of Life - Feng Zhi's Life and Creation", which has been reduced due to space limitations.) ）